History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 76

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I > Part 76

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methods of administration which, in the unrestrained exercise of its recently acquired, but undisputed, power, and of its seemingly cultured intellect, that revolutionary faction had practically regarded as fit and proper for the government of a " free people." * *

* *

During the interval, between the dissolution of the first and the organization of the second of the series of Provincial Congresses which controlled the destinies of the Colony of New York and crowded an unwilling community into rebellion and ruin, an illustration was made, first in the County of Westchester and then in the City of New York, of the spirit of the controlling power, among the disaffected; of the shallowness of the prevailing pretensions to patriot- ism and personal integrity in those who were en- gaged in the revolt ; and of the personal character of the ruffians who were employed-as they had been employed in the Stamp-act and other riots, carlier in the struggle of parties-by those who were the master- spirits, in the works of lawlessness by means of which the Rebellion was promoted and established and made respectable.6

At that time, there was no newspaper-press in the Colonies which was conducted with greater ability than Rivington's New- York Gazetteer ; or Connecticut, Hudson's River, New-Jersey, and Quebeck Weekly Ad- rertiser, which was published, weekly, by James Riv- ington, in the City of New York. It was a news- paper, in the proper sense of the word; and it pub- lished the news of the day, from every quarter of the world, regardless of their political character, with rare industry and the most liberal impartiality. It did not accord with the interests of some nor with the passions of others, however, that such a faithful recorder of the sayings and doings of every faction and of every party should be continued in the Col- onies ; and there were times, also, when the exposure of the double dealings of particular individuals, of high as well as of low degree, in well-printed columns, in a widely circulated newspaper, as James Rivington had done, in his Gazetteer, were distasteful to those who were thus exposed and unwelcome to those whom the enlprit was serving. It was evidently determined, therefore, that James Rivington should be silenced ; and that his only means for inflicting pain on the persons of those who favored the Rebellion should be taken from him.

There was, also, at that time, no one, in the Colony of New York, who possessed greater intellectual and executive abilities combined with superior scholastic attainments, than Samuel Seabury, a Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, ordinarily known as "The Venerable "Society," Rector of the Established Church in the

1 Journal of the Provincial Congress, May 22, until July 8, 1775.

2 Journal of the Committee of Safety, July 11, until July 25, 1775.

8 Journal of the Provincial Congress, from July 26, until September 2, 1775.

A Journal of the Committee of Safety, from September I, until October 3, 1775.

& Journal of the Provincial C'ongress, from October 4, until November 1, 1775.

6 " This I know, a successful resistance is a ' REVOLUTION,' not a ' RE. " BELLION." . REBELLION, indeed, appears on the back of a flying en- "emy ; bat ' REVOLUTION' Names on the breastplate of the victorious " warrior."-(JOHN WILKES, in the House of Commons, February 6, 1775.

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HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Borough Town of Westchester, and Master of a Boarding-school for Boys, in the same Town. He was the friend and Pastor of Isaac Wilkins, the able leader of the conservative majority of the Opposition, in the General Assembly of the Colony; and the Manor of Morrisania was within the boundaries of his Parish ; and the Morrises, brothers-in-law of Isaac Wilkins, but masquerading as leaders in the Rebellion, were, nominally, if not in reality, among his parish- ioners. He was learned, as was well-known : he was fearless in the declarations and support of his well- considered opinions, as was known to his neighbors and friends : that his convictions led him to support the conservative portion of the Opposition, led by his friend, Isaac ' Wilkins, is more than probable : that the same convictions led him to oppose, within the circle of his influence and consistently with his min- isterial duties, the doings of the revolutionary faction of the Opposition, among whom his neighbors and parishioners, the Morrises, were capering, was no sceret. When the press was teeming with publications, ad- verse to the violence of the revolutionary faction, he was improperly designated as one of the very few who had written them, with no other evidence to support the allegation than his recognized ability and fearless- ness ; and when " A. W. FARMER " appeared, with his practised and powerful pen, arousing the most violent bitterness of those who were in rebellion, the intellectual rustic who had written them, by common consent, was erroneously but reasonably said to have been the Schoolmaster and Parson at Westchester, while the real but unrecognized author of the obnox- ious publications was generally passed, unnoticed. The political Parson, therefore, was very offensive to those of the revolutionary faction who were not his neighbors-" in justice to the rebels of East and West "Chester, I must say," he wrote, in 1776, " that none " of them ever offered me any insult or attempted to do " me any injury that I know of" -- and it was evidently determined that he, also, like James Rivington, should be silenced, even at the expense of his personal liberty and of all which was dear to him, on earth.

There was one man, more than all others, who was qualified to enter on any adventure, no matter how lawless nor how atrocious, provided, and only pro- vided, he could have an abundant force to support him and to overpower any opposition which might possibly arise to obstruct or to endanger him. He had been a privateer, in the War with France and Spain ; and in the only encounter which he had had with an enemy, lie had shown the white feather of cow- ardice, his crew having become his accusers. He was known, subsequently, as one of those blustering, rock- less, law-defying leaders of the floating denizens of the docks, in New York, ready to disregard all Rights, all of every thing except their own wills, in acts of which only the traditional pirates and banditti were sup- posed to have been capable of performing, whenever, and only whenever, in his judgment, those acts could

be done without personal risk to the aggressors, and whenever, and at no other timc, those acts of lawless- ness promised that the plunder to be secured there- from would afford a sufficient compensation.

He had married the daughter of the keeper of a low, unlicensed alehouse, a resort of sailors, boatmen, stevedores, and such as they, opposite to Beekman's Slip, and that alehouse was his rendezvous; 1 and those who had resorted to Jasper Drake's, had always been his ready instruments, in whatever acts of vio- lence in which he had ventured to engage. He had never possessed the entire confidence of the leaders of the revolutionary faction of the Opposition, in the City of New York : he had never been taken into the sanctum sanctorum of that coterie of Livingstons and of Smiths and of Scotts, whose had been the unseen master-hands by whom such puppets as he had been handled and made conspicuous : he had never been permitted to occupy any place, in Committee or in Congress, unless in minorities which, because of their comparative insignificance, were incapable of disturb- ing the harmony of the aggregate bodies into which they had been adroitly introduced.

At the time of which we write, he was an ignorant blusterer, as vain as he was ignorant; and he needed only, as General Charles Lce said of him, "to have " his back clapped " by some one in authority and to be shown that it would be useful to himself-if he could be vested with an office, no matter what nor how ephemeral in its character nor how "impu- " dently " bestowed, so much the better-to be ready, at short notice, to exercise his entire power, as a ruf- fian of the dirtiest water, in any required act of law- lessness, regardless of any Rights of Person or of Prop- erty, or of any claim which age or sex might inter- pose. He called himself a Merchant, in the City of New York ; but he had been more conspicuous in shipping Merchandise and Provisions to the east ward, clandestinely, when such shipments to the eastward were interdicted, than in any more legitimate busi- ness. He had been a member of the recently dis- solved Provincial Congress, during a portion of its existence ; but, in entire harmony with his earlier proclivities, when there were threatenings of danger from the Home Government, he had abandoned the

1 .A letter from Jolin Case, from the Conuty of Suffolk, on Long Island, "to the Printer of the New- York Gazetteer," and published in Rirington's New-York Gazetteer, No. 91, NEW-YORK, Thursday, January 12, 1775, narrated the method in which those who were not inclined to favor the theories and practises of the revolutionary faction were inveigled into that Taveru, and, there, subjected to the teachings of Alexander McDougal, Isaac Sears, and others of that faction ; aud a description of the insuhs and outrages inflicted on those who were inclined to object to the subject matters of those teachings, by those ale-house " patriots," especially by Isaac Sears, may also be seen, in the same letter.

The attempted reply to John Case, in which Isaac Sears subsequently attempted to raise new issues instead of meeting old ones, served only to establish, more clearly, the truthfulness of Case's original statement ; and those who shall incline to pursue the inquiry, may find it in Holt's New- York Journal, No. 1674, NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 2, 1775.

305

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

City of New York ; and, in the latter part of Novem- ber, 1775, Isaac Sears was safely housed in New Haven, although it is evident that he continued to correspond with the leaders of the Rebellion, in the former City.

On Monday, the twentieth of November, 1775, that cowardly ruffian, Isaac Sears, accompanied with six- teen others of the same class, all of them mounted, left New Haven, in Connecticut, for the purpose of regulating Westchester-county.1 It had become a favorite pastime, among the rowdies on the borders of Connecticut, as it has been a favorite pastime among Texan rowdies of a later period, in their coun- try, to make depredatory raids on those who lived on the opposite side of the river-boundary ; and those " border ruffians," in revolutionary Connecticut, had been encouraged to raid on the conservative farmers, in Westchester-county; to overpower those farmers with numbers and, especially after the disarming pro- cess had deprived the latter of the means for protect- ing themselves or their property, to rob them of whatever could be carried away; to return to their own side of the Byram-river, well-laden with what- ever had pleased them best, on the farms and in the farm-houses which they had visited; and to enjoy, in their own " Christian New England," the stolen products of other men's honest and earnest toil, and to be cheered, as "patriots," by their "Christian New " England " neighbors.

The avowed purpose of that band of acknowledged "banditti "2 was "to disarm the principal tories "there," [at Erst and West Chester,] " and seeure the "persons of Parson Seabury, Judge Fowler, and "Lord Underhill," three residents of Westchester- county ; and it is said they were joined, on their way, by other parties of inen, numbering about eiglity, uuder the leadership of "Captains " Rich-

1 "Ou the 20th of this month, sixteen respectable inhabitants of this "town, in company with Cuptaiu SEARS, set out from this place, for " East and West Chester, in the Province of New-York, to disarm the "principal torles there, and secure the persons of Parson Seabury, " Judge Fowler, and Lord Underhill." * * * (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [New-Hacen, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

Frank Moore, in his Diary of the American Revolution, (i., 349-351,) published u mutilated version of that editorial article, from the original of which the above was extracted-tho other portions of the latter of which will he used hereafter-and eredited it to The Pennsylvania Journal, published in Philadelphia, on the ninth of December.

" In the preceding September, Lord Dunmore, then at Norfolk, in Virginia, had helped himself to the type and printing-press of John Holt, in that Town ; and it was said of the thief and his confederates, "a few " spirited gentlemen in Norfolk, justly incensed at so flagrant a breach "of good order and the Constitution, aud highly resenting the conduct " of Lord Dunmore and the Navy Gentry, who have now commenced " downright Pirates and Banditti, ordered the drum to beat to arms," etc. (Extract from a contemporary publication, in Force's American Archives, Fourth Series, iii., 847.)

Besides the entire fitness of the words to distinguish those who were guilty of such lawless doings, a precedent for the use of those otherwise strong terms in such specific connections, is afforded in the above ex- tract, from unquestionably revolutionary authority ; and we offer no apol- ogy for applying one or both of them to those, from Counecticut, on the oc- casion now under notice, when Lord Dunmore was far outdone, in wan. ton atrocity.

ards, Silleek, and Mcad.3 It was not pretended that these enterprising Connecticut-inen had any other warrant to engage in such an undertaking, than that afforded in the propensity of every cowardly thief to plunder those who were kuown to have been strip- ped of their means for defence, and who were, there- fore, helpless. It was not pretended that any of the proposed victims, in the instance under notice, had said or done anything, in opposition to the Re- bellion, which had made them amenable to the un- bridled caprices of those who were in rebellion ; and it was evident that, had those proposed victims thus transgressed against the " Associations " or the " rec- "ommendations " or the " Resolutions " of the revolu- tionary authorities, the local Committee in West- chester-county, or the Provincial Congress in the City of New York, or the Committee of Safety of the last-named body, and not an improvised and self- constituted power, in auother Colony, was the proper tribunal to take cognizance of such an offence. But in such a party, led by such a ruffian, only the law of the will of the stronger possessed any authority or secured any respeet; aud that law of "the pirate " and the banditti," unfortunately, prevailed iu the instance now under notice.

The expedition evidently moved slowły, on its way to New York; 4 and, especially after it had passed the Byram-river, it undoubtedly foraged on those who were unfortunate enough to live on the line of its march. It pillaged the farm-houses ; and, at Mamaroneck, it burned a small sloop which be- longed to one who was assumed to have been a frieud of the Government.5 A detachment of about forty men, under a Captain Lothrop, appears to have been pushed forward to the Town of Westchester, where, on Weduesday, the twenty-second of Novem- ber, it seized the person of Nathaniel Underhill, the Mayor of that Borough, and that of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, who, as we have said, was the Master of

3 "On their way thither" [for East and West Chester, ] "they wero "joined by the Captains Richards, Scillick, aud Mead, with about 80 "men." * * * (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN] Wed- nesday, November 29, 1775.)

It is due to the respectable portion of the inhabitants of the Connecti- cut of that period, that mention should be made of the fact that uo such names as these appear on the lists of Officers of Connecticut Companies, in 1775, which Mr. Hinmau published in his Historical Collections of the part sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolution; and that it is very probable that these three " Captains," like that other "Captain " who led them, on that occasion, possessed no other warrant than that of "courtesy," so called, for the privilege of carrying the title.

4 It left New Haven on Monday, the twentieth of November ; but it did not reach Westchester until Wednesday, the twenty-second, and the City of New York, to which place it extended its exeursion, until noon on Thursday, the twenty-third of that month.

5 " At Marinek they burnt a small sloop, which was purchased by Gov- "erument, for the purpose of carrying provisions on board the Asia."- (The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

« * * * * and burut one sloop belonging to persons friendly to gov "ernment."-(Governor Tryon to the Earl of Dartmouth, No. 22. " ON " BOARD THE SHIP DUTCHESS OF GORDON NEW YORK HARBOUR, Gth DeCF "1775."

306

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

a Boarding-school and Rector of the Established Church, in the same place, the former, as was sub- sequently seen, only because he had signed the Declaration and Protest, at the White Plains, in the preceding April,1 the latter, because he was more obnoxious to those who were in rebellion, in conse- quence of his greater intellectual power and of his decidedly greater bravery in the assertion and maintenance of his opinions and of his Rights.2 Having accomplished its purposes in the seizures of the persons and in the plunder of the properties of the two victims, in Westchester, the detachment per- mitted Mr. Seabury, if not Mr. Uuderhill, to send for his horse ; and, then, it hastened away, on the road which connected that Town with Kingsbridge. It had not proceeded far, however, when it was met by the main body of the banditti, with whom, with characteristic cowardice, was Sears ; and the entire party then returned to Eastchester, where, on its way toward New York, it had already seized the person of Jonathan Fowler, who was one of the Judges of the Superior Court of Common Pleas and Colonel of one of the Battalions of the Colonial Militia, against whom, also, it seems there was no other complaint than that he, also, had signed the Declaration and Protest, at the White Plains, in the preceding April.3

The contemporary records do not present the cir- cumstances which attended the seizure of the Mayor of the Borough of Westchester; but it is probable they were similar to those which attended the similar seizure of Judge Fowler and that of Mr. Scabury- the banditti undoubtedly ransacked the housc and examined his papers and helped themselves to such articles of his movable property as best pleased them. From Judge Fowler's house, there were carried away a beaver hat, a silver-mounted horse- whip, and two silver spoons, 4 besides the sword, gun, and pistols which formed portions of his offi- cial equipments as Colonel in the Colonial Militia ; 5 and at Mr. Seabury's, besides assaulting one of that gentleman's daughters, thrusting a bayo- net at her breast and through her cap, and tearing down her hair, the marauders cut a quilt which was in the frame, rendering it useless; examined his

1 See pages 248-250, ante.

2 " At East Chester they seized Judge Fowler, then repaired to West " Chester and secured Seabury and Underhill."-(The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

In his Memorial to the General Assembly of Connecticut, Seabury ex- pressly stated that he was arrested by a detachment ; that the main body of the party was subsequently joined, by the detachment ; and that all, then, returned to East Chester.

$ Memorial of Samuel Seabury to the General Assembly of Connecticut, December 20, 1775.

See, also, The Connectieut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775 ; Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 66, 67 ; etc.

Memorial of Samuel Seabury to the General Assembly of Connecticut, De- cember 20, 1775.

5 Jones's History of New York during the Revolutionary War, i., 67.

private papers and scattered them; and carried away a small sum of moncy, which was in the drawer of his desk. Of course, the Boarding-school for Boys,. which he had organized and established with so much labor,6 for the better support of his family, was broken down; and the pupils, five of whom were from Jamaica and one from Montreal, the parents of four others being in Europe, besides "others from " New York and the country," were necessarily scat- tered, inflicting an irreparable injury to him and to his large and dependent family.7

When these seizures had been accomplished and after what had been stolen had been sufficiently secured, another detachment from the main body of the banditti was sent back to Horseneck [ West Green- wich, Connecticut,] as an escort and guard of the three prisoners and of the booty; 8 while the main body, itself, numbering seventy-five mounted men, moved for- ward, from East Chester, toward the City of New York.9

Where that large body of horsemen spent the fol-

6 The following advertisement, copied from Rivington's New-York Ga- cetteer, No. 97, NEW-YORK, Thursday, February 23, 1775, will clearly in- dicate the high character of that Colonial Westchester Boarding-school tor Boys, probably the prototype of those similar institutions, in more recent days, which have made Westchester-county so widely knowu, in the world of Education :

" To the Public, "SAMUEL SEABURY, M.A.

" Rector of the Parish of Westchester,

"FTATH opened a School in that Town, and offers his Service to " prepare young Gentlemen for the College, the Compting- " House, or any genteel Business for which l'arents or Guardians may " design them. Children who know their Letters will be admitted to " his School, and taught to read English with propriety, and to write it "with a fair Haud, and with grammatical accuracy. They will he in- "structed in Arithmetic, if required, in its utmost extent ; and in the " Elements of Geometry ; in Trigonometry, Navigation, Surveying, etc. "-The Latin and Greek Languages will be taught those who are in- " tended for a learned Education.

" There are already eleven Students under Mr. Scabury's Care, and as " soon as the Number of Scholars shall require it, a good Usher will be " provided : And no Care or Diligence shall be wanting to give Satisfac- " tiou to those Gentlemen who shall favor him with the Education of " their Children.

" Proper attention will be paid to the young Gentlemen, that they be " kept clean and decent, and that they behave with propriety ; and as " the most essential Part of Education is to qualify them to Discharge "the Duties and Offices of Life with Integrity and Virtue, particular "Care will be taken to explain to them the Principles of Morality, and "the Christian Religion, by frequent short Lectures, adapted to their " Capacity.

" Board, (Washing included) may be had, in unexceptionable Fami -- "lies, at about twenty Pounds per Ann. aud the Tuition will be six

"Pounds, New-York Currency, and eight Shillings for Fire-wood.

" Westchester is about nineteen Miles from New York, by Land, and "about fifteen by Water ; and a Water passage may be had almost "every Day, when the Weather will permit, in good safe Boats."

7 Memorial of Samuel Seabury to the General Assembly of Connecticut, De- cember 20, 1775.

8 " Having possessed themselves of these three cuitiffs, they sent them " to Connecticut under a strong guard."-(The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, November 29, 1775.)

See, also, Memorial of Samuel Seubury to the General Assembly of Cou- necticut, December 20, 1775.

9 The Connecticut Journal, No. 424, [NEW HAVEN, ] Wednesday, Novem . ber 29, 1775.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

lowing night is not now known-it is not in the slightest degree probable that it paid its way, in what- ever part of Westchester-couuty it billeted itself-it is very evident, however, that it was expected by the leaders of the Rebellion, in the City of New York, since it was met and escorted into town by Samuel Broome, John Woodward, and others of their class ; 1 and it is said, also, that Alexander McDougal, Peter R. Livingston, John and Joshua Hett Smith-the latter so conspicuous, subsequently, in the interviews between General Arnold and Major André and in the evident exposure of the latter to arrest-and a num- ber of others, their confe lerates if not their tools, werc assembled on Hanover-square, on which the Bookstore aud Printing-office of James Rivington were situated, apparently and nominally for military exercises, but really for the purpose of covering and protecting the approaching banditti, in its proposed work of devastation and robbery.2

The column appears to have moved from East- chester, by way of Kingsbridge and the old Boston post-road, through what are, now, the Central Park and Madison-square and Broadway and the Bowery and Chatham-square and Chatham-street, to what is, now, Pearl-street-theu known as Queeu-street 3 --- which was the direct route to Hanover-square, the objective point of its march. With its escort of local sympathizers, its progress was not obstructed; and, on Thursday, the twenty-third of November, at noon, when it reached the Square, it "drew up, in close "order, before the printing-office of the infamous " James Rivington," + those who had already assembled there, evidently for the purpose of covering it, if not for the purpose of doing more than that, should any opposition to its purposes be manifested by any one welcoming it, as their auxiliaries and confederates.

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. I, Part 76

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1354

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, ed
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1354